OK, quick report on the Nippon army list.
I got together with my friend Ian yesterday to play Nippon versus Daemons. We played 2000 points on a side, Battle Royale, and lots of hills and forests. I gave Ian the Nippon army selector last week, so he could have time to study the list and come up with an army.
I thought I would share some of our experiences with this army list.
First up: It is a complicated army list. Ian made a few mistakes with his list.
First up was the break point. He calculated the break point based on both the number of Samurai units and the number of Monk (meaning Temple and Monk) units.
Next, he had more Monk units than Samurai units. He fixed that.
Next, he had a sorcerer and a Shrine in his list. He fixed that by switching the sorcerer to a mystic. By the way, I really like the Mystic's special ability.
So once we straightened that out, we played. And what a battle it was!
At first I was dismayed because of the sheer number of units I had to plow through to get to his Samurai units. His unit of Temple Dogs went down fairly easily because they were left all alone on his right flank. My cavalry lost a stand to take them down. Because the TD were taken out, I had the hill on his right flank, which I invested with a Greater Daemon, a unit of flyers, and 4 units of cavalry.
I had a great round of combat (the Chaos gods favored my dice rolling), destroying 6 or 7 AShigaru and Ronin units (and at least one Zealot Monk unit) for no units lost. However, the 6 units I used in the attacks took casualties -- 1 or 2 stands each. The Zealot Monks were brutal in combat, but ultimately went down due to no armour saves. The Ronin were rather troublesome due to the +1 they get in the first combat round, and for a moment it looked like they might gain the upper hand in their combat. As the Nippon army charged me, I started my turn once the combats were over.
Surprisingly, none of my wounded units went back to the Warp. I charged a unit of Ronin and a unit of Samurai. Both units went down, and I lost a cavalry unit. They unit of flyers that I committed was chewed up, losing two stands. The Greater Daemon floated away, not badly hurt, snacking on leftovers. Once again, I had the devil's own luck in rolling both hits and saves.
Nippon charged into my cavalry with Samurai on foot. My Greater Daemon was charged by the Mounted Samurai. Both might have gone better if the Nippon units could have followed up. Toward the center, 2 units of Samurai cavalry charged a unit of Daemon horde and wiped it out, taking a stand of casualties.
The last turn I was able to take out 3 units of Samurai, losing 3 units that turn and getting more wounded units. The Shrine that Ian took prevented my summoning of daemons to replenish my wounded units.
The battle was an exciting one, and if it hadn't been for my excellent dice rolling, the result would have been more even. The Nippon army was numerous, as I expected. It took a lot of damage, as I expected. But the list did not seem overpowered. Nor did any of the units in that list. And it was quite a pain that I could not summon in new stands to replace the stands that were removed as casualties. Ian used the mystic's ability very well, in some cases knowing he would be able to get an difficult order off.
Ian was happy with how the army played, and now wants a re-match.
So, aside from being a complicated army list, I wholly endorse the Nippon army list as being fun to play and to play against. Good job guys!
